Transference - I Finally Get It

[StellaBlue]

I've been struggling with some really painful transference - to the point where I was seriously considering ending therapy. Knowing intellectually that it is transference didn't help - just made things more tangled up. Then, last night, it finally sunk in. All of these feelings are real - it's the stories I'm telling myself about the feelings that aren't real. And it was as if the dark veil that's been covering me for weeks was lifted.

Ha! Maybe there is something to this CBT stuff!

 

[BloomInWinter]

Well done!!!

 

[AqueousAndroid]

Transference sounds like a really familiar term, but I"m gonna be honest...I am not sure what it is?

 

[StellaBlue]

Transference sounds like a really familiar term, but I"m gonna be honest...I am not sure what it is?

In very simple terms, transference in therapy is when you transfer an emotion that is really about something else onto your therapist. So I might experience an really strong emotional reaction to something my therapist has said or done that is way out of proportion to the actual event which (usually) means that emotion is actually about something or someone else.

 

[NovemberStar]

@StellaBlue.
Well done! I relate to the 'logically I know what it is and why but it just makes it more tangled' aspect of transference. All the logic in the world doesn't make it any less real or any less painful. It does just add to the torment actually, because I KNOW it's illogical :(. I hope you're able to talk to your T about it? (Is it your T for whom the transference is with?).

 

[StellaBlue]

@NovemberStar Yes, it's transference with my therapist. I'm planning to bring it up at our next session (although the thought of discussing it with him is causing me a good deal of anxiety).

 

[StellaBlue]

I'm trying really hard to believe that talking about it with him will be therapeutic - not just for deepening our relationship, but also in helping sort out what I've been pulling into other relationships. A lot of the feelings touch the parts of me that were deeply wounded by my trauma(s). My "go to" reaction to having these feelings in the past was to run away as fast as I could from whomever was triggering them. I think it's time to try something different. But there's a huge fear that it won't end well.